And then, to her astonishment, Susannah saw she was listed as President and Chief Operating Officer, while Mitch had appointed himself Executive Vice-President of Sales and Marketing.
Mitch took in the expression of surprise on her face. "Being president sounds impressive, Susannah, but it'll be mainly dirt work for a long time. I hope you're up to it."
"But you're far more qualified. Why—"
"Marketing technical products is what I do best, and it's why you recruited me. I don't want to be distracted with day-to-day operations. You've said that you're a detail person.
Now you're going to have to prove it."
Her mouth felt dry. Even though this was what she had wanted, she was frightened. They weren't operating out of a garage anymore. What did she know about running a real company?
Mitch called for a vote, and before the pizzas arrived, she had been officially elected SysVal's first president.
On a warm and sunny afternoon just before Halloween, Susannah was in the Gamble garage packing up the last of the equipment. Mitch had been right, she thought, as she slapped a pile of tools in the carton with a little more force than necessary. Being president sounded a lot more impressive than it was. Everyone had gone off and left her to do the final cleanup. Yank was working on the prototype, and Mitch had flown to Boston to see his children. Sam was supposed to be helping her, but he had run off a couple of hours ago and not returned.
In the past two weeks she had been able to handle most of the emergencies that had popped up, and the company was still running. Although Yank continued to grumble about the way the three of them had strong-armed him into leaving Atari, the work on the prototype for the self-contained computer was now progressing much faster. They had hired a talented engineer from Homebrew to design the power supply, and spent hours debating what they would name the machine. All of them had discovered they liked images that had to do with heat and fire. After much discussion, they voted to name the machine the Blaze.
Sometimes as she studied its emerging circuitry, Susannah found herself remembering the evening at the playground with Sam.
Do you know what Yank's machine is going to
give you
? he had told her.
It's going to give you courage
. In a funny way, Sam's prophecy had come true.
As if she had conjured him with her thoughts, he poked his head in through the garage door. His hair was even longer now than when they'd met. At night, when she was naked, she liked to comb it through her fingers and pull the inky strands across her breasts.
"It's about time," she said grouchily.
He grinned like a kid who'd just gotten away with something. "Sorry. Things to do."
"I'll bet. You've probably been out joy riding."
Removing the wrenches she was holding, he cupped her bottom and pulled her hips forward so that their jeans rubbed together. Then he kissed her. "You're sounding like a nagging wife. Come to think about it, that's not a bad idea. Go get your face washed.
We're getting married in half an hour."
Her head shot back. "What?"
He grinned. "It's all arranged. Mom just left to pick up Yank, and they're meeting us at the tire playground. I like the idea of doing it there. The guy who's marrying us is the brother of this guy I know. He's got another ceremony at one o'clock, so we sort of have to rush."
She stared at him.
He stepped back, tilted his head to one side and gave her that cocky I-dare-you look. A police siren whined in the distance. She could see him waiting for her protests, waiting for her to give him a long list of all the sensible reasons they couldn't do something this impulsive. She thought of the hundreds of phone calls and endless rounds of appointments that had gone into the preparations for her wedding to Cal—all those intricate, elaborate, ultimately useless preparations.
Although she had known him only six months, her mind refused to consider the possibility of a future without Sam. She needed to touch his skin and breathe his air for the rest of her life. "All right," she said breathlessly. "I'll do it."
He let out a whoop of delight and drew her back into his arms. "God, I love you." He pulled her into the house, where he barely gave her five minutes to comb her hair and dab on a few cosmetics. She substituted a purple gauze blouse for her T-shirt, but before she could unfasten her jeans to exchange them for slacks, he was dragging her back outside toward the Harley.
They arrived at the playground just as Yank and Angela climbed out of Angela's red Toyota. Yank was at his worst, so distracted he didn't seem to have the vaguest idea what was happening. Angela was talking a mile a minute and dabbing her eyes with tissue. To Susannah's surprise, Sam pulled a florist's box from the bike's saddlebag. Inside was a bridal bouquet of yellow roses.
The minister, whose name was Howard, appeared in a Grateful Dead T-shirt and told Sam how cool he thought all this was. Neighborhood children playing on the tires and riding along the bike path came over to see what was going on. Susannah felt as if she had been thrown back to the sixties.
They stood in front of a dome made of tractor tires, with Yank on Sam's right and Angela, sniffing and holding a rosary, on Susannah's left.
"Listen, you guys," Howard said as he began the ceremony. "I don't know either of you, so what I have to say isn't important. Why don't you just look at each other and make the promises you think you can keep. Sam, you go first."
Sam turned to her and squeezed her hand. "I promise to give you everything it's in my power to give, Susannah. I'll be honest. I'll speak the truth for both our sakes. And I won't be afraid to walk into the future with you."
They were strange vows, but they stirred threads of emotion deep inside her because they were so typical of Sam, so exactly right.
It was her turn. She gazed into his eyes and tried to find words to express the inexpressible. "I promise to give you my best, Sam, whatever that may be." She paused and the traditional wedding vows of love and honor passed through her mind. She searched for a new way to say them, a way that would reflect the passion and joy she felt in his presence, but her silence lasted too long, and Howard spoke before she could finish.
"That's cool. That's really cool." He picked up both their hands in his and squeezed them.
"The law says that you're married, but only the two of you know what that really means."
He then went on to ruminate about the universal powers of light and harmony and concluded with the words, "Be groovy."
The children on the playground giggled as Sam kissed her, and then Angela kissed them both. Yank and Sam shook hands, and Howard hugged everybody, including the kids.
Sam made a mad dash over to a set of playground rings suspended from a heavy chain and pulled himself across them, hand over hand. When he dropped to the ground, he threw back his head and laughed. He was exultant, as if he had claimed some priceless possession. Together, they raced to his bike.
Angela had not been able to find a box of rice in Yank's kitchen cupboards and had grabbed a box of elbow macaroni instead. She quickly distributed its contents, and the motley assortment of wedding guests pelted the bride and groom with it as they roared away.
They took a wild ride into the hills. Sam's hair had come loose and it blew into her face, stinging her cheeks. She pressed her breasts to his back and held him tightly against the chill cut of the wind. They left civilization behind and climbed higher. Eventually he steered the bike onto a narrow, rutted road that soon dwindled to an overgrown path.
When even that disappeared, he slowed and drove through the dry brush to the edge of a steep bluff. Only then did he stop.
The sound of silence was sharp after the roar of the engine. The Santa Clara Valley lay below them, its highways, industrial parks, and rectangular buildings laid out so that it look like an enormous integrated circuit. "I've put the world at your feet, Suzie," he said, his voice husky. "The two of us together—we can have whatever we want. By ourselves, we're not anything. But together, the Valley's ours. Yours and mine. We'll be king and queen."
There was a strange intensity about his words that made her uneasy. She broke the tension by saying lightly, "Queens are supposed to have crowns. I don't even own a baseball cap."
He smiled and the sunlight sparked silver lights in his black hair. She drank in the sight of the wild, free lover who was now her husband. "One of these days I'll buy you your own Harley," he said. "How about that? It'll be a royal Harley." He tugged her blouse from the waistband of her jeans and pressed his lips to her temple. "You'll ride it naked right down the middle of El Camino Real, just like Lady Godiva."
As he reached behind her for her bra clasp, she instinctively closed her hands over her breasts. Although the area was deserted, she was hardly used to taking off her clothes outside, and she laughed nervously. "It sounds uncomfortable. Won't I be cold?"
He gave her a sexy, half-lidded look and pushed her hands away. "Baby, I'm going to keep you so hot that you'll never be cold again."
Her bra fell to the ground. He gazed at her breasts and used the tip of his finger to draw a line down the center of one. She had a crazy desire to lift her arms high over her head and display herself to him.
He tugged down her jeans and her panties at the same time and pulled them off along with her shoes. The air was crisp and chill on her skin, the ground cold beneath her feet, but she barely noticed.
For a moment he rested the flat of his hand over his stomach. Then he lowered the zipper.
The denim fell open in a deep V. Her lips parted slightly as she saw his bare stomach and the line of dark, crisp hair and realized that he wore no briefs beneath.
"You ever done it on a bike before, Suzie?"
"A thousand times," she said breathlessly.
"Big talk." He cocked his head toward the black leather seat. "Straddle it."
Her mouth had grown dry. Once again he was daring her, testing her, pushing her beyond the safe boundaries of her experience. Without taking her eyes from his, she did as he said, keeping her back to the handlebars so she was facing him. The black leather was chill against her bare buttocks and the soft insides of her thighs.
His mouth cocked insolently. Facing her, he swung his leg over the seat and slipped his hands under her knees. Lifting and spreading them, he pushed his own legs beneath her.
The inside of her bare calves rubbed against the outside of his denim-clad ones, the underside of her thighs lay over the top of his. He looked down at her. Through her excitement, she thought how vulnerable her position made her to him. She was open and assailable while he was a hard, strong, denim-encased ridge hidden beneath her.
"You're going to be a great queen." He played with her breasts until she moaned, and then he indented her nipples with his thumbs as he pressed her back against the handlebars.
She tilted her neck and looked at the sky. Her hair tumbled over the tachometer and the headlight. Thin blue-white clouds skidded across the sky while he pulled at her nipples until they turned into hard, swollen buds.
Finally, he moved the flat of his hand down between her breasts and over her abdomen, skimming her body as the clouds skimmed the sky. His hand came to rest on her tight, auburn curls. "Snooty and cool on the outside…" He moved his fingers. "Hot on the inside."
She moaned and drew up her feet. Her toes curled over the rear pegs as he caressed her.
She felt as if she were moving out of her body into the sky. The Northern California sun came from behind a cloud and struck her skin. Her hands clutched his calves. She arched her back and turned her breasts upward like some primitive human sacrifice offered for the pleasure of a god.
Beneath her hips he opened his jeans the rest of the way and released himself. His boots were still on the ground, steadying the bike as he shifted his hips, poised himself, and entered her. She clutched his calves harder, arched higher. But as he began to move inside her, she couldn't get enough of him.
She pulled herself up to straddle his lap. Her hair fell over his shoulders and down his back, the auburn strands drifting like fine silk over the tough black leather. She was the aggressor now. She impaled herself deeper on him and made him adjust his rhythm to hers. A lock of his hair brushed her lips. She took it in her mouth. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she arched her waist and took him all.
He groaned. "That's good… That's so good."
Tears stung her eyes as she moved upon him. "Oh, yes. Yes."
"More… Give me more."
"I love…" she cried. "I love you…"
"Harder… More… Yes… more."
Her orgasm was quick and shattering. "… love you so much," she sobbed as she died upon him.
He dug his fingers into her buttocks and thrust himself hard up into her. As she felt him reach his crisis, she pressed her damp cheek to the top of his head and willed him to speak the love words she craved.
His cry was hoarse and strangled deep in his throat. "More," he demanded. "Give… me more."
Chapter 17
The SysVal offices were sparsely furnished. Three battered steel desks sat in separate corners of the open room, and two long worktables occupied the fourth. A few rock concert posters and a fold-out Harley-Davidson ad hung on the wall. As Mitch walked through the door, he couldn't help but compare the posters to the Helen Frankenthaler canvas that had hung in his last office.
Although it was only a little after seven on Monday morning, Susannah was already sitting at her desk. Her feet were tucked under her, and she had a pencil stuck behind her ear. As he walked inside, she looked up from her notepad and smiled at him.
"I know all about the early bird and the worm," she said, "but don't you think you should have gone home to get some sleep first?"
"I slept a little on the plane."
"How was Boston?"
"Fine."
She didn't press him, and he was glad. He still felt bruised from having left his kids last night. Liza's dark curls had smelled like baby shampoo when he'd kissed her good-bye.